


Faithful to Thee, In My Fashion

by Mithen



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Marvel 616
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>J'onn finds himself in a strange world.  Inspired in part by <a href="http://roguecatwoman.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://roguecatwoman.livejournal.com/"><b>roguecatwoman</b></a> 's story "<a href="http://roguecatwoman.livejournal.com/65461.html">Saved</a>," where he ends up in the Marvel Universe and meets Mystique.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faithful to Thee, In My Fashion

_I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,   
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,  
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;   
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,   
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:   
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara ! in my fashion._ __

Tony Stark was, people whispered, entirely _too much._  The S.H.I.E.L.D. director was seen with a different beautiful person at every social gathering, every endless party, every charity function.  He went through pretty men and women like tissue paper, people murmured, like they were nothing but props for his show of power and influence.

Tuesday, for the grand opening of the new library, it was Barbara, her red hair piled on top of her head, her large glasses somehow only lending _panache_ to her look.  Men started conversations with her entranced by her shapely legs and ended up stunned by her wit and intellect.

Wednesday at a party it was a vapidly handsome blond man with gleaming teeth introduced to everyone as Michael.  Nice guy, former football star, good talker...but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, people murmured.  Definitely a step down from Barbara.

Thursday at the museum he was arm-in-arm with Diana, a statuesque brunette with a deep calm about her that made people stop and stare.

Friday, when Stark came to a party with Selina--dark and elegant, with a cynical smile to match the director's--and left with that handsome young acrobat...well, everyone agreed that was a new low for him.

He took walks in the park with icy-blond Tora, was seen at P.R. events with Hal, and turned heads with the dangerously-young Kara.  It was never the same person twice.

When those closest to him asked about his string of admirers--with that hint of disapproval in their eyes, the touch of disappointment, _how could you be so untrue, Tony?--_he merely laughed lightly.  "I'm always faithful--in my fashion," he said, and they left it at that.

They never asked Tony's companions what they felt of his philandering ways. 

They might have been surprised to find that every one of them had exactly the same opinion about the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.  
**  
: : :**

He had intended to lay low.  It had quickly become clear that this new world he found himself in--familiar and yet strange--was not welcoming to bald, green-skinned shapeshifters.  Safer to blend in, to try and make as unobtrusive a life as possible.

And yet, he always found his path winding toward New York.  New York and the mind that he could sense there, burning like a beacon, steady through anguish.  The mind like a diamond, hard and true, with flaws that only made it blaze the brighter.

A mind that needed comfort.

He had revealed himself to Stark expecting no trust, and received none.  He had been locked in a cell immediately, interrogated, subjected to an endless battery of tests.  But J'onn had experienced situations like this before, and knew how to wait.  How to be calm and patient, how to outlast suspicion, how to be open to chances for familiarity, and then for grudging respect.

And finally to something that could perhaps be called friendship.

Saving Stark's life three or four times--and having it saved in turn--hadn't hurt.

And so J'onn J'onnz had found himself in Tony Stark's penthouse overlooking the New York skyline.  In his world, he would be able to see the glimmer of Gotham's low lights on the horizon.

Tony was taking a call in another room.  Still staring out at the spaces where Gotham and Metropolis would be, J'onn caught sight of an old photograph on the mantle, a group portrait.  A barbecue somewhere.  Tony Stark was on the edges of the group, his smile guarded as always.  J'onn looked at the picture and let his form shift gradually into that of the green-skinned woman with the dazzling smile.  Then the woman with scarlet hair.  The human form was...subtly different in this world, in ways that J'onn couldn't explain.  Focusing, he shifted to match the muscular blond man with blue eyes standing next to Tony.

There was a choked gasp and a clatter behind him;  he turned to see Tony standing at the door of the room, his phone dropped as he stared unseeing.  "You don't--" Tony said sharply, crossing the room in quick and savage strides, "--you don't have the _right!"_

His hand swung out to strike J'onn--and stopped short, shaking.  Still in the blond human form, uncomprehending, frozen by surprise, J'onn stared...and felt the brilliant mind in front of him start to shatter.

Without thinking, he stepped forward and wrapped the other man in his arms, as if his touch could keep Tony anchored to sanity.  Tony made a horrible noise, a choking howl that turned into tearing sobs that seemed about to rip his chest asunder. 

J'onn held him as he sobbed.  He held Tony and listened to what he said, to all he had never let himself say.

He held him together.

Eventually, silence fell.  Tony's breathing became more even.  The sharp and jagged rents in his soul were still there, but they hadn't consumed him.

To J'onn's amazement, Tony laughed:  a breathless, sardonic laugh.  He pulled back and looked at the Martian.

"I have a proposition to make you," said Tony Stark.

**: : :**

It's midnight.  The work and the parties are over.  Tonight Tony Stark was seen with a tiny little blond woman in fishnets who cut patronizing men to ribbons with her wit.  The party is over, and Tony lies in the arms of someone who looks like Steve Rogers. 

The lights of New York glimmer outside the penthouse windows like distant stars.  J'onn watches them.  He and Tony have reached an arrangement that works for them:  he provides Tony an array of companionship to keep the philandering image intact, and on the nights when Tony can't sleep, with the pain is too intense, he holds the other man and listens to him talk.

It isn't sex.  It isn't love.  It's comradeship, and shared pain.

They both have lost their worlds.

Tony is telling a story of when Steve first joined the Avengers, of simpler times.  J'onn listens.  Tomorrow he will dress up as Ted Kord, he decides.  Let people wonder what Tony sees in him.  He'll be self-deprecating and wry and charming in a low-key way.

He provides Tony comfort, and in return J'onn recreates his friends in this world and in his heart.

He wonders:  How many worlds can a person lose?  How many times can they start over, how many times can they hold on to hope?

As often as necessary, he supposes.

Tony's story has wound down, and his arms tighten around the phantom in his bed.  "I miss him," he says, and the simple truth of it wrings J'onn's heart.

"He'll make it back," he says softly.  "They always do eventually.  The bright and the shining, the courageous ones.  They always find their way home."

Tony's laugh is bitter.  "Maybe in your world," he says.  "I don't know about this one."

The lights outside the window are like infinite worlds, so far away, so bright.  J'onn watches them.  "We'll all find our way home, someday."

He hopes he's right.


End file.
